Lee Cusenbary is the General Counsel at Mission Pharmacal Company in San Antonio. He is also the creator of Ethics Follies®, a musical parody that uses comedy to raise ethics issues. The fully-produced Broadway-style musical combines San Antonio's business leaders and professional actors to engage the community. It is featured each year by The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) for their ethics conference which benefits The Community Justice Program. Lee is also a frequent writer and speaker on why "good ethics is good for business," and is a recipient of the San Antonio Business Ethics Award. In 2012, ACC renamed their ethics awards the "Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life Award" in recognition of his commitment to ethics in law and business. Learn more about how you can be part of a more ethical culture at EthicsFollies.com.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Federal Law Denying Gay Americans Benefits Found Unconstitutional

In a 5-4 ruling, The United States Supreme Court held that a provision of the 17-year-old Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal benefits to same-sex couples who are legally married under twelve different states’ laws was a denial of equal rights. The Court made a broad ruling regarding the rights of all Americans to benefit from the federal laws that provide some benefit to married couples.

For example, if a member of a married same sex couple was a member of the armed forces and was killed in the line of duty, the U.S. military did not have to contact the surviving spouse because the Defense of Marriage Act didn’t recognize gay marriage. Family medical leave and tax laws also benefited straight married couples and did not recognize gay couples.

From an ethics perspective, the ruling is the only logical conclusion because it’s not possible to enforce the U.S. Constitution that provides for equality of its citizens, but allows 1,100 federal laws to discriminate against a select few with an immutable (involuntary) characteristic of being gay.

More details on the ruling and the dismissed Proposition 8 case can be found below in a story by Stephanie Condon.

By Stephanie Condon /

CBS News/ June 26, 2013, 10:05 AM

Supreme Court strikes down DOMA, dismisses Prop. 8 case

Updated at 10:30 a.m. ET

The gay rights movement saw a significant victory at the Supreme Court Monday, even as the court dodged the fundamental issue of whether marriage is a constitutionally-protected right for all couples, gay or straight.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court struck down a provision of the 17-year-old Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal benefits — like Social Security benefits or the ability to file joint tax returns — to same-sex couples legally married.

“DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. Kennedy was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

At the same time, the court ruled 5-4 that the defendants in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which considered the constitutionality of California’s same-sex marriage ban (called Proposition 8), have no standing in court. Supporters of Prop. 8 brought the case to the Supreme Court after a lower court struck down the law but California’s governor and attorney general declined to defend it. By dismissing the case on procedural grounds and passing up the opportunity to issue a significant ruling on the issue of marriage.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan.

The practical impact of dismissing the Prop. 8 case is limited. It leaves the lower court ruling striking down Prop. 8 in place, applying statewide at best.

The impact of the DOMA case, however, is clear. DOMA impacts around 1,100 federal laws, including veterans’ benefits, family medical leave and tax laws. There are about 130,000 married same-sex couples in the United States today who up to this point were treated as unmarried as it pertained to those federal laws.

Monday’s decisions represent the latest development in a dynamic and fast-moving national dialogue – largely taking place at the state level — over gay rights, and same-sex marriage in particular. Just this year, Minnesota, Delaware and Rhode Island adopted laws recognizing same-sex marriages, bringing the number of states that do so to 12. At the same time, 35 other states have laws or constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court’s first foray into the subject of same-sex marriage, while limited in impact, reflects the American public’s growing acceptance of same-sex marriage. Just as the court is finally broaching the subject, a number of politicians at the federal level – both Democrats and Republicans – are taking a cue from the public and coming out in support of same-sex marriage. Even if the court had left DOMA completely in tact, it would have almost surely faced a political challenge in Congress. The debate over the constitutional right to marriage, meanwhile, will continue at the state level for now.